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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22903414">Fickle Human Plans</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/theBitchTornado/pseuds/theBitchTornado'>theBitchTornado</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ookami to Koushinryou | Spice and Wolf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Falling In Love, Harvest Festival, Holo's Backstory, Love Story, Misunderstandings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:15:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,339</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22903414</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/theBitchTornado/pseuds/theBitchTornado</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lawrence thinks he's going to marry Nora.<br/>Well the Gods don't care.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Holo/Kraft Lawrence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fickle Human Plans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lawrence woke up at dawn, like everyday of his life and stretched.  He looked over at the bed next to him, smiling because he knew that he was going to ask Nora to marry him today. <br/>
Him and the shepherd girl, Nora, have been courting for a year now, after last year’s harvest. She was a sweet and pretty girl, not unaccustomed to working hard and being thrifty. She was a good match for him, he knew, and he had finally saved up enough money for a family. His shop was doing well, and the villagers were expecting him to marry soon, now that his father died. So, Nora it was. She would make a good wife to him and mother to his children. <br/>
<br/>
With that thought, he leapt out of bed and started his day. He quickly washed himself and bounded downstairs to open the shop. His apprentice, Col, had already started washing the windows and taking care of the money box. <br/>
<br/>
“Col?” he called out to his apprentice. The boy looked back at him fixedly. <br/>
<br/>
“Have you seen my cloak?” he asked. Col shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Odd, Lawrence thought he left it down here last night. He then shrugged. He was sure that it was around here somewhere. <br/>
<br/>
Lawrence started to unlock the most precious merchandise from the shelves and started to arrange it on the counter so people could buy the best of the best- especially with the harvest festival coming up. <br/>
<br/>
The harvest festival was an annual tradition in his town, and it celebrated the goddess Holo, who hundreds of years ago had come and turned the barren soil into fertile ones, thus helping the weak humans feed themselves. It was a time for proposals, and marriages as well as bringing in the harvest, so Lawrence knew that the time had come. Him and Nora were going to be together from this day forward. <br/>
<br/>
He already asked her family for her hand, and they enthusiastically agreed, seeing as he was one of the most successful merchants in town. Nora had been hinting at him to propose. So today, especially, he wanted the shop busy and good. He wanted a prosperous beginning to their marriage. <br/>
<br/>
He and his apprentice worked steadily throughout the morning, and through the early afternoon. There was an unusual amount of people streaming in and buying his merchandise. There were so many people that Lawrence was considering hiring someone else, just for the next couple of days. <br/>
<br/>
He finally got a break in the mid-afternoon when the trickle of people slowed. Nora bounded into the shop and gave him a kiss on the cheek.<br/>
<br/>
“Hello, Kraft. I see you working very hard,” Nora greeted him, her big brown eyes smiling. He smiled back at her and nodded. <br/>
<br/>
“Well, I must. How else will I earn my daily bread?” he said back, trying to tease. <br/>
<br/>
She smiled and handed him some food wrapped in a cloth. “Here, I made you this.” He nodded once and opened up the package to see some bread, meat and cheese all pressed together. He glanced at her and she looked at him expectedly. <br/>
<br/>
“You know, I can’t wait for the festival tonight,” she said, taking out her own package of food as they sat at the entrance to the shop. He nodded and bit into his own food. <br/>
<br/>
“Neither can I,” he began, “and I hope that I can interest you in a dance?” <br/>
<br/>
“I hope you’ll be interested in more than just a dance,” she answered, winking. He almost choked on his food, coughing and reaching for his water skin. He looked over at her and she smiled wickedly. He wasn’t a stupid man, but he wasn’t witty with his words like she was. All he could do is nod and smile. <br/>
<br/>
She seemed satisfied. They continued to eat in silence as the festival chaos started up- people setting up booths and chairs and tables. Housewives and children setting up food, craftsmen setting out their wolf shaped wares and old men and women smoking and observing. A group of pregnant women were sitting in the middle, next to the wolf shaped wheat bundle decorating the square. It was said to be good luck for a woman and her child to either be conceived or birthed during the harvest festival. Many women hoping to conceive a child spent the festival night with their husbands in the wheat fields, hoping that the Goddess Holo would bless them with offspring. If a woman went into labor during the festival, everyone she knew would give her a necklace of wheat to place around her neck and march her into the fields. It was the only time of year when wheat was plentiful that that ritual was allowed. All other times, women had to satisfy themselves with a wheat potion to give them strength. <br/>
<br/>
Lawrence thought all this as he gazed at Nora. If they married tonight, as many young and impatient couples were wont to do, then maybe they could try to conceive tonight. He was twenty-five and impatient for a family. He wasn’t sure how old Nora was, exactly, but he hoped she wanted children right away as well. Life was short after all. Maybe the best blessing would be tonight. <br/>
As they both finished their meal, Nora kissed him on the cheek and went home to prepare while he went back to work. He went upstairs to his small apartment and laid aside his best clothes for the night ahead. It was crucial for him to look his best today. <br/>
<br/>
He heard his apprentice calling him downstairs to help with a customer. He ran down the stairs and then he saw...<br/>
<br/>
The most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life. She had long, beautiful brown hair that went to her waist, wide auburn eyes that sparkled and a creamy complexion that would make a noblewoman jealous. However, there was one simple detail that convinced him that he was dreaming of this beauty. <br/>
<br/>
On her head she had a pair of twitching wolf ears that were the same color of her hair and tipped in tufts of delicate white fur. Col looked like he was frozen, and Lawrence knew that he needed to control the situation and quickly. He cleared his throat. <br/>
<br/>
“Hello, miss. My name is Kraft Lawrence and I’m the owner of this establishment. Can I help you with something?” He hated how low his voice sounded. He cleared his throat again. The beauty simply smiled- like she knew what he was thinking. <br/>
<br/>
“Well,” she began, and Lawrence instantly grew hard at the sound of that husky voice, “I’m not looking to buy anything. You see, I have no money.” She giggled. <br/>
<br/>
“What I <em>am</em> here for, however, is<em> you</em>.” <br/>
<br/>
Lawrence was speechless and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow. Did I do something to offend you?” <br/>
<br/>
He did not expect this beautiful...creature...to throw her head back and laugh but that’s exactly what she did. It was...unsettling in how much he enjoyed her laughter. <br/>
<br/>
“You didn’t offend me,” she said, breathless from laughter. “I think you remember taking my wheat yesterday?” she motioned to the display at the window that yes, was made up of wheat. He set it up last night before heading to bed and it was both a decoration and a prayer. He thought it clever that he made it look like a wolf and he covered it with his cloak before he went to bed. <br/>
<br/>
The cloak that had gone missing. <br/>
<br/>
The cloak that he realized....<br/>
<br/>
<em>She was wearing. <br/>
</em><br/>
And apparently, nothing underneath. <br/>
<br/>
<em>Shit.</em> <br/>
<br/>
He cleared his throat again. “Your wheat?” he asked. <br/>
<br/>
She nodded, smiling. <br/>
<br/>
“Yes, my wheat.” She smiled even bigger and plopped down on the counter. Lawrence couldn’t help but swallow harder. The erotic nature of her position didn’t escape him, and he thought about...doing...married things....on the counter. <br/>
<br/>
“So...” Lawrence stuttered, “do you want it back...? Because that would be no trouble at all...miss?”<br/>
<br/>
“Holo. I am Holo the Wise Wolf.” Lawrence thought he must have misheard her, and she noticed that. <br/>
<br/>
“You didn’t mishear me, Mr. Lawrence, I am Holo the Wise Wolf and you took my wheat. But I don’t want it back.” <br/>
<br/>
He gulped. “Then what do you want, Miss Holo?” She looked confused, as if she couldn’t tell if he was messing with her. After a while of looking at each other she sighed, and he thought he heard her whisper, “Damn humans.” She looked back at him and smiled. <br/>
<br/>
“How much do you know about me, Mr. Lawrence?”<br/>
 <br/>
“That you’re a goddess of the harvest and somehow also a wolf?” She rolled her eyes and jumped off the counter. The cloak floated behind her and he spied a tail wagging. She turned to him and asked,<br/>
“Do you have somewhere we can sit, and I can explain?” <br/>
<br/>
“Come into my office, then I suppose,” he offered. He let her lead the way and held the door open for her and he locked it so Col couldn’t see them. He bet that Col would keep his mouth shut; he picked him as an apprentice specifically because he wasn’t a gossipy lad and was good at keeping his master’s secrets. <br/>
<br/>
She sat down gracefully in front of him and looked him straight in the eyes. He found that he liked that. <br/>
<br/>
“Before you explain everything to me, would you like some mead?” he asked politely, and her eyes lit up and she nodded with enthusiasm. He poured her some and passed her the tankard, which she gulped down quickly. He never thought he would find that charming, but here it was. <br/>
<br/>
“Three hundred years ago,” she began, “I left my home and came down to the south. I was curious to see things that weren’t forests and I traveled for years, seeking my pleasure. I saw most of this continent and grew homesick, but before I decided to come home, I stopped here, when it was just a collection of huts.” She smiled and sipped from the tankard. “I made friends with an old woman who tried to farm this strip of land and I decided that she deserved a good last crop for her last harvest. It was the first good harvest she ever had, and she asked me to stay until she died. I agreed, knowing that she didn’t have long to live, and I figured I would bury her and move on my way.” She gulped, and looked down at the tankard, her eyes glassy. “But on the night she died, I was captured but one of her daughters, who came down from another village to visit her mother. The daughter tied me up with rope, screaming that I was a witch who murdered her mother and the villagers all rounded on me, and tried to bury me with the old woman. The only way I could escape was into the seeds of the wheat, and into the soil. The villagers didn’t realize but from that moment on, it was me who controlled the harvests and over time, the villagers tried to appease me so the harvest would be good.”<br/>
<br/>
She sighed, “But I couldn’t escape because the soil held me captive. So, I swore to myself that whoever freed me, would get to marry me and have my children.” She looked at him again.<br/>
<br/>
“Yesterday, when you were out reaping the wheat, you accidentally dislodged the soil underneath enough so I could escape into the sheaths and escape that way. You freed me, so I’m here to be your wife.” She sat back and let him process her words. <br/>
<br/>
Her...to be his wife? It was unbelievable. She was so beautiful, so charming, a literal <em>goddess</em> and she wanted to marry him? He was a merchant! <br/>
<br/>
“But I’m a merchant,” he said, “You’re so beautiful that an Emperor wouldn’t be good enough for you!” She smiled at his flattery. <br/>
<br/>
There was a knock on the door, and he heard Col say, “Lawrence is in here, Nora. Have fun at the festival!” <br/>
<br/>
<em>Nora</em>. The girl he was going to marry tonight. He saw Holo tilt her head in confusion at his panic, but she didn’t have time to ask him a question when Nora burst in and cried out happily,<br/>
“Kraft! The festival is about to...” She stopped herself when she saw the barely clad beauty sitting across from her suitor. The beauty with wolf ears?<br/>
<br/>
“Kraft?” she asked hesitantly. “Who is this?” <br/>
<br/>
Holo turned around eagerly and shook Nora’s hand. <br/>
<br/>
“I’m Holo! I’m going to be his wife!” Nora pulled back as if she was shot. “His wife?” She looked over at Lawrence who was standing up and trying to placate her, but Nora quickly ran out of the shop and onto the street, crying while Lawrence tried to chase after her. <br/>
<br/>
“Nora! Wait!”<br/>
<br/>
He chased her into an alleyway where she slapped him across the face. <br/>
<br/>
“You dare pass me up for a demon?!” She screamed. He winced.  She walked away from him and leaned against the brick wall. <br/>
<br/>
“Please Nora, I love you. I have done nothing with her. Please, I beg you to believe me.” He knelt on his knees and pressed his palms together in prayer. <br/>
<br/>
“You have an unclean soul, Kraft. You need to repent and send that <em>creature</em> back where she belongs.” Nora said coldly, turning away from him. “She’s sent from hell and you need to send her back.”<br/>
Lawrence winced at the venom in Nora’s voice and tried to explain as best he could who Holo was. Nora stood there, not believing a single word he said. <br/>
<br/>
“I don’t care what she has told you. She’s an evil being, and she needs to be dealt with accordingly.” He flinched and started to get angry. <br/>
<br/>
Holo didn’t do a single thing to anyone. If anything, she was vulnerable and how did Nora not see it?<br/>
<br/>
“She’s not evil, Nora, if you would just-”<br/>
<br/>
“Just what?! Be nice to your whore? The one claiming that you love her? The one claiming who is claiming that she will be your wife?”<br/>
<br/>
“She never claimed that I love her!”<br/>
<br/>
“But she claimed you were going to marry her...instead of boring old me.”<br/>
<br/>
“That’s not true!” <br/>
<br/>
“Do you love me?”<br/>
<br/>
Lawrence was brought up short by that question. Did he love Nora?<br/>
<br/>
“I...uhhh.” he couldn’t finish his sentence. Nora looked at him regretfully. <br/>
<br/>
“I see now,” she said and walked away. “We’re done,” she called over her shoulder and disappeared into the growing crowd while he slumped home. <br/>
<br/>
Guess he wasn’t going to have that family after all. <br/>
<br/>
He walked home dejectedly and noted that Col had head out to the celebration. Did Holo?<br/>
<br/>
She had not. She sat un her chair in his office and he looked at her. <br/>
<br/>
She looked like she had shrunk, and her beautiful face echoed his loneliness. He sighed. She turned around and got up. <br/>
<br/>
“I take it that Nora was to be your wife?” she asked in a small voice. He shrugged. <br/>
<br/>
“She was, but now it will not happen.”<br/>
<br/>
Holo looked horrified and tried to run away but he stopped her.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not your fault, Holo,” he said. “I should have told you that I already had a woman and I should have told Nora that I had a guest.” He shrugged. Holo looked down and shuffled her feet. <br/>
<br/>
“Still...I should probably go. That way you can win her back?” Holo’s voice cracked. He smiled at her sadly. <br/>
<br/>
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I have some food upstairs and I have some clothes you can borrow. I think I have some cloth to also cover your ears.” She started and smiled tentatively. <br/>
<br/>
“I would appreciate that, Lawrence.” <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Lawrence feared that Holo would be a deterrent to his store, giving how Nora’s family was very loved in this town, but the opposite came true. Holo was a charming addition to the shop, and the gossip made it more fun to shop there. <br/>
<br/>
Everyone, by the second week, speculated that they were already married and that the reason no one knew about her was because she was a foreigner. Or that the reason they got married was because he impregnated her on his many trips out of town and he had only found out during the festival. When the townspeople asked Nora, she wouldn’t give anyone an answer, so people assumed that he broke a promise to her, and the poor girl was humiliated. <br/>
<br/>
But Nora was a lucky and popular girl and in the absence of Lawrence, she had more suitors than she knew what to do with and she met a traveling merchant while out on the pastures one day. They were married two months later, and she left town to be with her husband. <br/>
<br/>
The scandal of Holo died down after that. No harm, no foul. Even Nora’s family stopped being hostile, but they were never friendly again. <br/>
<br/>
Life slowed down and Holo and Lawrence got to know each other. <br/>
<br/>
Holo thought that Lawrence was uptight and miserly while Lawrence thought Holo was lazy and a spendthrift. <br/>
<br/>
The neighbors could hear them arguing sometimes, but most of the time it was simply Holo flirting with him and he didn’t know how to react. So, he would change the subject or ask a question that he knew would bother her. And then she would drink most of his ale and he would get annoyed, but in a soft way he’d never felt before. <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Holo wondered how well the harvest would turn out now that she was no longer stuck in the field, but it turned out to be just as good as the last one. This year she got to be a part of the celebration and it filled her with longing every single time she looked at all the families setting up outside and thought that while she brought all of these people together, she still was mostly alone. <br/>
<br/>
If it weren’t for Lawrence, she would be completely on her own, and she was thankful. He had never even tried to take advantage of her, but she wondered if she could...tonight. She felt this pull to let go of her civilized side and be the wolf again. <br/>
<br/>
She smiled. She knew exactly who she wanted to be a wolf with.<br/>
<br/>
Lawrence was observing Holo, who was at the window. He knew that she longed to party, especially since last year he didn’t take her out. This year, he was determined to do so. As much as he liked to call her lazy, he admired the fact that she stuck it out here instead of ditching him in the wake of the scandal. <br/>
<br/>
He cleared his throat. <br/>
<br/>
“Hey, Holo?” he asked. She turned her head around and tilted it in the cutest way and smiled his favorite smile. <br/>
<br/>
“Since we didn’t get to go last year, would you want to this year?” he asked. <br/>
<br/>
She squealed and took his hand. <br/>
<br/>
“Come on then! The party is starting!” He laughed and followed her out the door. <br/>
<br/>
For half the night, they danced, but when Holo started to get hungry, they left the dance floor in search of sustenance. It wasn’t hard to find, and neither was the drink. <br/>
<br/>
They ate and drank and then they danced again. This time they were much sloppier and then at the last song of the night, Lawrence, inebriated, pulled her in and kissed her full on the mouth. <br/>
They pulled away from each other and Lawrence was about to apologize when Holo kissed him back. They continued to kiss until someone wolf whistled, and they broke away, both blushing. <br/>
<br/>
They looked at each other. <br/>
<br/>
“I think we should go home,” Lawrence said. She smirked. <br/>
<br/>
“We should.”<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Nine months later, Lawrence got his wish for a family fulfilled. </p><p> </p>
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